Classic British Flight Sim

Jeez you lot are posh. Computers?

My first flight sim was an old cardboard box that my mums washing machine was delivered in, back in 1980. I drew dials drawn on the inside with a marker pen and had a broken atari console joystick for a yoke. My throttle was a screwdriver stabbed into the side of the cardboard that just hung aimlessly and had no 'smoothness' or 'resistance' that a modern Saitek throttle could offer. The box was placed strategically near the upstairs spare bedroom window so I could see inbound Aircraft en route to EGCC and my classic airband radio was with me in the 'flightdeck' so I could pretend I was involved in the pattern.

My aircraft was 'scrapped' in 1981 when mum had a clearout and took the box to the tip. Sob..

My first game was on the Sinclair Spectrum and it was called "F14" Blue sky and green land and that was it but with a very rudimentary HUD...The cfg was great IIRC and i had many a great time with this....LOL I bought the "rig" and game in the NAAFI at Lossie in '85 and it was 2 x months wages then :o

Ahhhh the good ol days.... :yipeee:

Techy

Sinclair Spectrum here as well. 64kb of raw processing power. :o

There was a Dambusters sim which was awful and a Spitfire one which wasn't any better, the ground attack helicopter one was pretty good though. I can't remember their proper titles now.

The best game on the Spectrum had to be Elite, does that count as a flight sim? In fact I think few games have matched Elite's playability however good the graphics may be now.

Jon

My son had the Vic 20 and played the usual shoot em ups whilst I had a 'real' computer a PCW 8512 on which I flew a helicopter gunship. Think it was called Gunship - not sure. Lots of wire graphics and all in green/black.

My first 'real' flight sim was Mig29 then I had all the Janes flight stuff. I was a late starter with MicroSoft FS, starting with FS6.


Allan

you where Lucky!.

We used to dream of livin in't middle "T" Road.



A300 on TRS80 or ZX81

a line and 2 triangles was all you had.

After an ATC Sqdn Link Trainer in the 1950s came 'Elite' on son's Spectrum. Is there amodern counterpart of 'Elite'?We three 'lads' had great fun. Then 'Sea Harrier' on Spectrum. Long pause prior to FS95. Now FS9 daily.

No more 'sugar lump' clouds. Today we enjoy amazing topography, nav programs, virtual airlines and airforces, real weather from the Internet and an excellent amount of freeware built by really skilled enthusiasts. There is also some very worthwhile 'payware' to be used. A wonderful hobby for those of us who would have been real pilots by first choice.

When, at the age of 11, I announced to my very tall and very serious new Headmaster that my aim in life was to become an RAF pilot I was deeply shocked, and wonder now if I ever recovered from his reply 'Is that all.' I wondered silently, having been brought up on 'Biggles & Co' : "What does he mean, 'Is that all?', that is all there was!' (In my young eyes anyway). Within five years, life, and other people's lives, was to take me from a service I love and pitch me into British industry with nothing to do with aviation except be flown to work in Vanguards, Viscounts, Comets, Britannias, 1-11s and Tridents. The flying was good, the problems at the end of the flight (irate shop stewards, accountants, engineers outside the aviation industry) not always easily solved.

My first was Flight Simulator II published by Sub-Logic on an Apple II+. I later got an Apple IIe and brought a "zip chip", added 1 meg of ram to the original 64K and FS ran smooth as silk. Of course after a while I got bored flying around the few areas of scenery available and so I started to add additional scenery areas, which came on 5 1/4 floppies that had to be loaded when you flew into the new scenery area. I think one of my first additions was "Southern UK, Northern France" and I remember how delighted I was to be able to fly over London, my birthplace, not a cloud in the sky!

If anyone played this game, you'll know exactly why I just posted images.

Simply the best.

Link-Miles C-130K at Thorney island, 1971, but it wasn't really a desktop!

The graphics were great, though: a tv camera over a huge 3-D physical model of the area about 30 ft on a side, with everything modelled in detail. It would have made a prize-winning model railway.

Kevin

VEGAS wrote:Jeez you lot are posh. Computers?

My first flight sim was an old cardboard box that my mums washing machine was delivered in, back in 1980. I drew dials drawn on the inside with a marker pen and had a broken atari console joystick for a yoke. My throttle was a screwdriver stabbed into the side of the cardboard that just hung aimlessly and had no 'smoothness' or 'resistance' that a modern Saitek throttle could offer. The box was placed strategically near the upstairs spare bedroom window so I could see inbound Aircraft en route to EGCC and my classic airband radio was with me in the 'flightdeck' so I could pretend I was involved in the pattern.

My aircraft was 'scrapped' in 1981 when mum had a clearout and took the box to the tip. Sob..

Funnily enough I suppose my first "simulator" was the same, except it was the cardboard box that my ride on tractor came in. (According to my parents I never played with the tractor but loved the cardboard box; it was the best present ever), however mine was positioned in front of the TV so I could pop "Battle of Britain" in and enjoy myself.

After an ATC Sqdn Link Trainer in the 1950s came 'Elite' on son's Spectrum. Is there amodern counterpart of 'Elite'?We three 'lads' had great fun. Then 'Sea Harrier' on Spectrum. Long pause prior to FS95. Now FS9 daily.

The modern counterpoint to Elite would be EVE Online I suppose. http://www.eve-online.com/ It's got the same "sandbox" design and it's the only game I've played that has felt as vast as Elite first did.